No One Will Ever Love Him

by Anne R. Allen

No one will ever love him the way his mother did
between her first and second drink,
while they waited for Daddy to come home,
when Daddy still came home
sometimes.

She’d love him with puppy-promises and bicycle-dreams—
a silver-blue one with tassels on the handlebars; a dog named Shep—
and going out for ice cream, maybe, after dinner,
and those trips they’d take into the Bronx, to the zoo
someday.

They only got to the zoo that one time
After Daddy left, and she tried to sneak him in
on a kid’s ticket even though he was a big, fat thirteen-year-old by then.
They were escorted off the property by men in uniforms, after she made
a scene.

He never did get the bike—or the puppy.
Although he dog-sat for the neighbors’ Rottweiler once.
He locked it in the cellar and sat in the silver-blue Barcalounger,
eating Rocky Road, and watching reruns of
Scooby Doo.

About Anne R. Allen

Anne R. Allen is the author of six romantic-comedy mysteries and a guidebook for authors co-written with Catherine Ryan Hyde. Anne's blog, which she shares with Ruth Harris, was named one of Writer's Digest's Best 101 Websites for Writers for 2013. Her award-winning poems and short fiction have appeared in journals as diverse as the literary humor magazine Opium and the Silver Boomer Anthology From the Porch Swing.